Dive Log 10: Take it Easy – Step by Step

Thursday, 17 March 2016

Dive Log 10:
Shore Snorkel Dive
Dania Beach

So I bit the bullet and finally bought a GoPro…. got the Hero 4 Silver with the touch-screen on back, with a wrist mount and some other attachments. And yes I got a dive flag.

By the time I finished work it was really too late to get started…. low angle light… but I had to get it in.

Out in the water the viz was maybe 20 feet horizontally but vertically for some reason you seem to be able to see farther…

In about 15-18 feet of water I practiced snorkel diving down to the sand bottom. Soon I will be taking Freediving Level 1 training.

Wearing a dive flag attached to your body by 20 feet of rope takes some getting used to. You know I have a fear of entanglement.

That school of a couple dozen ballyhoo halfbeaks found me –  maybe the same school from before? That would be very cool.

Here is my very first pic of fish underwater – well a frame grab from video.

Hopefully I can get a real good pic of ballyhoos at some point.

In the water I found myself fiddling with the camera trying to make sure it worked, and not paying attention to the water like I should. You know I am the worst technologically-adept person this side of a toaster oven.

I swam just a little farther out, and stopped.

Bobbing on the surface out in about 25 feet of water, I relished how quiet it was.

You know, the ocean is sure much less intimidating when you can SEE underwater.  Think back to the times you’ve swam with your eyes closed. It’s just all this blind splashing, not knowing what the fuk is beneath you or happening.

It was a calm day but suddenly one loud wave crashed to the southeast of me, incoming.

That crash of waves. It unnerved me for some reason.

My thought for today was: Take it easy. Step by step.

I realized it was approaching shark o’clock.

Another thought came: What am I doing out here by myself?

I decided to swim in to shore.

Turning my back to the open ocean, I felt that gap, that unprotected stomach falling feeling.

Haven’t had that in a while. What is it when you turn your back to the open ocean?

I remembered my first piece for this blogstory: When I Left the Land, Something Bumped Me in the Water.

Been here 2 years. Now it’s really gearing up.

On the way back I met this scrawled filefish chilling all by himself between the ridges of the sand bottom plains.